Jeff Bobo

Emergency personnel work to rescue a Kingsport boy from under his mother's car after it rolled over him Sunday in the Walgreen’s parking lot on Stone Drive. Photo by Jeff Bobo.

-------------------------------

KINGSPORT — A Kingsport boy was hospitalized Sunday afternoon when his mother’s car rolled over him in the Walgreen’s parking lot on Stone Drive.

Kingsport Police Department Sgt. Bryan Bishop said Logan Hicks, a fifth-grader at Roosevelt Elementary School, was sitting in the car while his mother went inside the store. The engine was running in park, and Hicks apparently put the car in reverse.

“The car started rolling backwards, not at a great speed, but he panicked and tried to get out,” Bishop said. “When he tried to get out the door caught him and rolled him right under the car.”

Hicks apparently had been in a football game or practice shortly before the accident because he was still wearing his pads, which may have prevented more serious injury.

Bishop said paramedics indicated Hicks was complaining of soreness but his injuries weren’t life threatening. He was transported to Holston Valley Medical Center.

Hicks laid under the car for about five minutes until rescuers arrived.

Dana Rothrock, an LPN from Brookhaven Manor was at Walgreens when the accident occurred.

She held Hicks’ hand until paramedics arrived.

“I was in the store and someone ran in screaming there’s a kid under a car — call 911,” Rothrock said. “He was hurting, but I just tried to keep him talking to me. He stayed conscious, squeezed my hand and he was following commands.

“He told me he’s a football player for the fifth grade at Roosevelt, and the football equipment definitely kept him from getting hurt worse.”

Bishop said wrecker driver Robert Johnson, who was in the parking lot when the accident happened, deserves praise.

Johnson rushed to where the car came to a stop and jacked the car up, taking the weight off of Hicks until rescuers arrived.

“This is just one of those things where a kid was being a kid,” Bishop said. “You hate that it happened, but thank God he had them pads on or he’d have gotten ground up.”